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"id": 1525583,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1525583/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13162,
"legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
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"content": "In its conclusion, the committee has given very clear action that should be undertaken by the Ministry for Agriculture and Livestock Development and the Bomet County Government to respond to the prayers that were put to the Senate by Mr. Kerich Kiprono Hillary. Again, because these are innovations, how I wish that this report would have a matrix, so that we know specifically what the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development and Bomet County Government should each do. Agriculture is a shared concurrent function between the national and county governments. So, if we do not assign clear responsibility, you end up with a situation where everyone assumes someone else is doing something, but they end up doing nothing. All in all, it is good that we have responded and directed the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development to establish programmes to ensure that there is financial assistance to the farmers who lost their crop. For example, in 2012, there was a 90 per cent crop failure because of the MLND. Madam Temporary Speaker, there is something happening in county governments that this Senate must address. At the onset of devolution, we had Farmers' Training Colleges (FTCs) across the country. I had one farmers training college in my county of Homa Bay. Then when this ambition and thirst for universities came, we converted the FTC to a university, the Tom Mboya University; a beautiful institution with very good infrastructure. I believe it shall be the host for the next devolution conference. However, we did not provide an alternative for training of farmers. If today you were to ask the Senator of Bungoma County, Sen. Wafula, to make for you a dish called, Lasagna he cannot because he does not even know what it is. He has no idea how it looks like. Of course, if you told him to make ugali, he would because he has seen it being made, and perhaps his mother taught him how to do so. If his mother did not, then he taught himself how to make it in campus because comrades know how to take care of themselves. The reason I am giving this illustration is that if someone does not teach you how to make Lasagna, you will probably never know how to make it. If someone does not teach you crop husbandry, you will fumble and probably not know how to undertake proper crop or animal husbandry. Our children, the ones living here in Nairobi may not know what we went through as we were growing up. I told my son some time back that in mornings such as this, I would have already gone to the farm to weed, came back milked the cows and taken the donkeys to the lake to fetch water. He told me “Daddy, I cannot do those things because we do not have a donkey, a cow or a farm.” If we expect our children to understand crop or animal husbandry, without teaching them, then we will be expecting too much. The future of agriculture is bleak in this country because we have killed the units, colleges and the places where someone who comes from a fish breeding area can go and learn how coffee is grown. Madam Temporary Speaker, you cannot know how to take care of a cow if you are not taught. The natural instinct that God gave humans is how to take care of a human beings, not how to take care, feed or milk a cow. We must bring back our FTCs and they must not be seen as places for retirees. That once someone has retired in Nairobi City The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}